By now, everyone should know that there has been a massive fallout over the resolution debacle between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. If you don't know about it you probably haven't been keeping tabs on the news, which is reasonable if you're not into smelling the burnt aroma of fanboy butthurt. Nevertheless, the issues have spilled over beyond the typical fanboy forums and insular communities and has made Microsoft step up and speak out about the issues.

Albert Penello recently took to NeoGaf to discuss the discrepancy between the Xbox One's lacking resolution in multiplatform games compared to the PS4, as noted by DualShockers. The director of product planning had this to say on the matter when goaded by NeoGaf residents for a concessions of having weaker hardware and what his stance on the issues were...

“ You asked what the chances were.

“ I’ll be back. You’re right, I should talk about it. But right now, still lots of info to come out. Once the dust settles, and all the information is out there, I’ll address my comments.

“Don’t read into that. It wasn’t meant to be a tease. I just mean we’re so close to launch, with reviews, games, etc. there is still a lot of information coming out. I was not intending to lead to anything more that that.”

This admission of nothing is basically a PR powerplay just to keep people informed that Microsoft is “listening”... just like the original Kinect 2.0.

However, this news is basically there to overshadow something a little more ominous. Apparently the tight-lipped Penello over the “resolution wars” wasn't just because he didn't know, and the alleged embargo to keep journalists quiet about the Xbox One having lower resolution games than the PS4 feeds back to a hardware and developer relationship that has supposedly caused all the hoopla.

According to Gearnuke, industry insider Ahsan Rasheed, going by the handle of “thuway”, made a series of tweets about why Microsoft wanted silence over the resolution of games like Call of Duty: Ghosts and why Activision was so “slow” in making the news public, stating...

There is no way I can prove what I'm about to say, except you will just have to believe me. Comes from a source who I trust without fail.

Activision asked MS to use the 10% OS allocated GPU portion on Xbox One for their COD Ghosts Port. MS responded: "No it would result in the environment being too unstable."

AND BEFORE EVERYONE jumps on MS's back, these are teething issues with launch. Things will get better, launching is a logistical nightmare. Tools, drivers, and developer knowledge of proper ESRAM utilization will all improve. Performance on the One and PS4 should improve markibly

That's almost reassuring... I guess?

Rasheed's comments mirror previous rumors by other insiders such as CBOAT, who also called out eSRAM issues and “hardware reliability” as the major factors for holding back the resolution output of Xbox One games from hitting native 1080p. And take note that Activision has confirmed that Call of Duty: Ghosts on the Xbox One is native 720p upscaled to 1080p.

Hopefully these “teething” issues don't last too long into the new generation console's lifespan, because it took quite a few years before the PS3 really started to hit its stride, so here's hoping that the Xbox One doesn't finally start getting proper ports in 2020. Otherwise, Microsoft might find themselves staying in third place behind the PS4 and Wii U throughout the entirety of the eighth gen of gaming.